Monthly Archives: January 2014

Community organizations must apply by Feb. 17

RANDOLPH – Nonprofit community organizations have an opportunity to apply for a $1,000 grant.

Gifford Medical Center is seeking applications for the annual Philip D. Levesque Memorial Community Award – a grant established in memory of the hospital’s late administrator.

Applications for the $1,000 grant are due to the hospital by Feb. 17.

The grant was established by Gifford’s Board of Trustees in 1994 in memory of Levesque, Gifford’s beloved president and chief executive officer from 1973-1994.

The award is given annually to an agency or organization involved in the arts, health, community development, education, or the environment in Gifford’s service area in recognition of Levesque’s commitment to the White River Valley.

“Phil was an admired leader who was dedicated to community service and improving our area. We’re excited to be able to carry on his legacy through this grant, and encourage community organizations to apply,” said Ashley Lincoln, Gifford director of development and public relations.

The hospital first awarded the grant in 1995. Past recipients include the Rochester Area Food Shelf; the South Royalton School’s Recycle, Compost and Volunteer Program; the Bluebird Recovery Program; Kimball Library in Randolph; Bethel’s Project Playground; Chelsea’s Little League field; the Rochester Chamber Music Society; the Royalton Memorial Library; the Tunbridge Library; the White River Craft Center; Safeline; Interfaith Caregivers; the Chelsea Family Center; the Granville Volunteer Fire Department; the Quin-Town Center for Senior Citizens in Hancock; and The Arts Bus Project.

A committee of hospital staff and Levesque’s family will review the applications and choose a winner. The announcement of the grant recipient will be made at Gifford’s Annual Meeting in March.

Rochester’s Barb DeHart is quick to sidestep the title “photographer,” but that doesn’t mean she won’t capture your eye.

DeHart is a retired business owner. She had a company that manufactured equipment for the electronics industry for three decades in Burlington, Mass. She retired to Rochester, Vt., and following the death of her husband in 1999 began investing more time in traveling.

“The photography sort of came along secondary,” says DeHart, who with little more than a basic point-and-shoot camera captured penguins on the Falkland Islands of Antarctica, polar bears in the Arctic Circle in Norway and on the Hudson Bay in Manitoba, Canada, and brown Kodiak bears and cubs in Alaska.

Unexpected visitor (photo provided)

DeHart brought the images of never-seen-in-Vermont, frolicking wildlife home, printed them and hung them on her wall.

Friends took one look and encouraged her to do more with the stunning images.

Last fall, some of her works were part of the Middlebury Arts Walk.

Still DeHart downplays them.

“I’m not a professional at all. My byline is ‘Photos for Fun.’ It’s just to make people smile,” she says self-consciously.

Her nerves stem from presenting her works for the first time in a gallery show. Beginning Wednesday afternoon, DeHart’s images of penguins, polar bears and Kodiak cubs will be in the Gifford Medical Center art gallery in Randolph.

Cubs playing (photo provided)

The show runs two months, until March 26, and is free and open to the public.

“It’s kind of overwhelming,” says DeHart, who in her regular life is a Rochester Budget and Finance Committee member, chairwoman of the Trustees of Public Funds and a justice of the peace.

Going forward, DeHart will continue to travel. She has a trip planned that will mean seeing more polar bears. And she will continue to take photos.

“It’s become a new hobby. Maybe it will become an avocation. But it’s been fun,” DeHart says.

Join the fun. See her show “Penguins, Polar Bears and Kodiak Cubs” from Jan. 29-March 26 at Gifford. The gallery is located just inside the hospital’s main entrance at 44 S. Main St. (Route 12) in Randolph. Call Gifford at (802) 728-7000 or Volunteer Coordinator Julie Fischer at (802) 728-2324 for more information.

Reflections on the past remind us of our roots and of how health care has changed in the past decades. Chief among those is the increasing role mid-level providers, such as nurse-midwives, nurse practitioners, and physician assistants, play in health care. Today, we have diverse physician-led health care teams in every area of medicine to encourage and support wellness.

Mid-level providers are extremely instrumental at birth, during hospital stays, in the primary care setting, specialty clinics, and even for our surgical patients. This team approach to care improves provider access and quality of care.

At Gifford, we are transitioning with great success to a team-based approach and are taking steps to ensure continued access to high-quality health care.

In 2012, some of those steps included new radiology services and technology, such as more interventional offerings, an upgraded 64-slice CT scanner, and a fluoroscopy room.

The midwifery team has expanded to the Twin River Health Center in White River Junction. Gifford’s approach to obstetrics and gynecology has grown to include more complicated cases.

The Blueprint Community Health Team has expanded and behavioral health is increasingly a part of Gifford’s offerings. Thanks to a generous gift from the Auxiliary, new CarePoint EKG transmission technology is available between our Emergency Department and ambulance services to identify heart attacks in the field and determine the best and fastest course of treatment.

Urology offerings have also grown and the Cancer Committee continues to expand. The Sharon Health Center sports medicine team has welcomed a nurse practitioner and second chiropractor.

These improvements are examples of the changes and quality upgrades we, as part of the health care team, can affect in an institution of the size and mindset of Gifford for the betterment of the community. Meld these improvements with Gifford’s foundation of patient care and advocacy, and we have a formula for success for decades to come.

Rebecca Savidge grew up in Chelsea, attended the local school and is now the latest health care provider at the Chelsea Health Center.

From her years at the Chelsea Public School, Savidge went on to the University of Vermont where she majored in biology with a chemistry minor. After graduating magna cum laude in 2009, she was part of the inaugural class of the physician assistant master’s degree program at Franklin Pierce University in New Hampshire.

During her schooling, she completed training rotations at medical centers throughout Vermont and New Hampshire, including Gifford, the South Royalton Health Center, Androscoggin Valley Hospital in Berlin, N.H., Central Vermont Medical Center, Cheshire Medical Center in Keene, Little Rivers Health Care in Wells River, The Health Center in Plainfield, and Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center.

Since graduating nearly two years ago, Savidge has worked at The Health Center in Plainfield providing family medicine. She loved the job, but not the drive from Chelsea, where she lives.

A job at Gifford meant not only work close to home, but work at a hospital she respects and in a community she knows well.

“I love that Gifford is a community-based hospital with a range of ancillary patient services and it still feels accessible,” says Savidge, calling the rural medical center both well thought of in the community and among other hospitals.

“Chelsea is a special community because people choose to give back,” she adds. “A huge attraction of working at the Chelsea Health Center is taking care of people you understand and feel connected to.”

Savidge is certified by the National Commission on Certification of Physician Assistants. She has special clinical interest in preventative care, women’s health, chronic care, small procedures and urgent care.

In addition to work in Chelsea, Savidge will work half a day a week in Randolph in the primary care office’s urgent care clinic.

Patients should expect a partner and collaborator in Savidge.

“I like to use shared, informed decision making within a patient-provider team model. Patients active in their care leads to better outcomes.”

In a small community where neighbors are friends, Savidge puts a large emphasis on respecting patients’ privacy.

Savidge is currently building a house in Chelsea with her husband. In her free time she enjoys the outdoors, including cross country skiing, snowshoeing, and pick-up soccer games in town, as well as gardening and reading.

Call Savidge at Chelsea Health Center at 685-4400. The health center, a modern new facility offering family care as well as pharmacy services and mental health, is off Route 110 just north of the village.